NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day

September 20, 2025

Gibbous vs Crescent

Early risers around planet Earth have enjoyed a shining crescent Moon near brilliant Venus, close to the eastern horizon in recent morning twilight skies. And yesterday, on September 19, skygazers watching from some locations in Earth's northern hemisphere were also able to witness Venus, in the inner planet's waxing gibbous phase, pass behind the Moon's waning crescent. In fact, this telescopic snapshot was taken moments before that occultation of gibbous Venus by the crescent Moon began. The close-up view of the beautiful celestial alignment records Venus approaching part of the Moon's sunlit edge in clear daytime skies from the Swiss Alps. Tomorrow, the Sun will pass behind a New Moon. But to witness that partial solar eclipse on September 21, skygazers will need to watch from locations in planet Earth's southern hemisphere.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html

Aliens Could Be Listening To Us Right Now, Says NASA Study

Sep 20, 2025 15:06 pm IST

Alien civilisations might be able to detect Earth's space communications, according to a recent study by researchers from Pennsylvania State University and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

The study suggests that when scientists send commands to spacecraft like Mars rovers or orbiters, not all of the radio signals are absorbed. A portion of these signals continues travelling through space, possibly for eternity.

“Humans are predominantly communicating with the spacecraft and probes we have sent to study other planets like Mars,” said Pinchen Fan, a graduate student in astronomy and astrophysics in the Penn State Eberly College of Science, the science principal investigator of the NASA grant supporting this research and the first author of the paper.

“But a planet like Mars does not block the entire transmission, so a distant spacecraft or planet positioned along the path of these interplanetary communications could potentially detect the spillover; that would occur when Earth and another solar system planet align from their perspective.

This suggests that we should look for alignment of planets outside of our solar system when searching for extraterrestrial communications.”

These signals, powerful and directed toward nearby planets, could potentially be intercepted by intelligent life forms located along their path. Similarly, scientists believe Earth could also detect alien civilisations if they send similar signals across space.

This research which was published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters, opens new possibilities for how we might locate extraterrestrial ,intelligence - by listening for their space communications, just as they might be listening to ours.

"Based on data from the last 20 years, we found that if an extraterrestrial intelligence were in a location that could observe the alignment of Earth and Mars, there's a 77% chance that they would be in the path of one of our transmissions, orders of magnitude more likely than being in a random position at a random time," Fan said.

"If they could view an alignment with another solar-system planet, there is a 12% chance they would be in the path of our transmissions.

When not observing a planet alignment, however, these chances are minuscule."

https://www.ndtv.com/science/aliens-could-be-listening-to-us-right-now-says-shocking-nasa-study-9312225

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/2041-8213/adf6b0

Prepare For The Worst NASA

September 19, 2025

OK so there is no legislation to extend spending until 21 November. Congress is leaving town and will only be back on 30 September – 1 October when it is probably too late to prevent a shutdown.

The Presidential Budget Request (PBR) for FY 2026 kicks in and all the scary things that White House and OMB wanted to do to NASA missions and personnel will happen.

Of course things could pivot in a new chaotic direction in an hour. So plan accordingly.

Update: There is some chatter that the House Appropriations Bill as it frames a NASA budget (which is bad but less bad than PBR by comparison) is what Sean Duffy will be following until there is some clarity on a real budget.

BUT this guidance is trickling down inefficiently and those people whose programs and missions – and employment – are nuked by the FY 2026 PBR are still acting as if that worst case scenario is what lies ahead on 1 October 2025.

Talk about crushing agency productivity even further. After watching a needlessly capricious mass personnel exodus and incessant byzantine executive order actions by this Administration, no one at NASA really trusts what has become yet one false hope joke after another.

https://nasawatch.com/budget/prepare-for-the-worst-nasa/

The Ancient Mars Variety Show

Sep 19, 2025

Perseverance accomplished something unusual this week: abrading two dramatically different rocks within the span of a few days.

While exploring the Vernodden area along Jezero crater's rim, the rover has been studying what might be "megablocks," a variety of ancient crustal materials with clues to Mars' early geological history.

The target "Peachflya," abraded on sol 1618, revealed clasts of different mineral compositions.

This could mean the rock is a breccia formed from fragments of even older materials that were broken up, transported, and cemented together – possibly during an impact in Mars' distant past.

Just meters away, the target "Klorne" was abraded on sol 1623 and it tells a completely different story.

The fresh surface is greenish, with some dark spots and white veins—evidence of significant chemical alteration.

Klorne’s green hue is consistent with the mineral serpentine, and reminiscent of Perseverance’s abrasion of “Serpentine Lake” back on sol 1404.

Next, Perseverance will examine the “Monacofjellet” megablock, which shows yet another distinct spectral signature.

Each of these ancient fragments can help the Science Team reconstruct the complex geological processes that shaped early Mars billions of years ago.

https://science.nasa.gov/blog/the-ancient-mars-variety-show/

NASA, Northrop Grumman Collaboration Ensures Resupply Mission Success

September 19, 2025

The crew aboard the International Space Station continue to unpack more than 11,000 pounds of critical spares, food and supplies delivered Sept. 18 by a Cygnus XL commercial resupply mission.

The arrival of the Cygnus XL to the space station was delayed by one day, due to changes in the rendezvous planning resulting from the main spacecraft engine shutting down early on two burns on Sept. 16.

Northrop Grumman’s engineering and operations, in close coordination with NASA, immediately began to evaluate the Cygnus XL engine burn and worked very closely with the agency to develop a new burn plan.

The Northrop Grumman team soon discovered a conservative safeguard in the spacecraft software settings that triggered an early warning and safe shutdown of the engine.

Teams adjusted the burn durations and resumed a new series of rendezvous burns to continue Cygnus XL’s approach toward the space station.

All subsequent burns were executed perfectly, allowing for the safe delivery of the spacecraft with no impact to station operations.

“NASA’s workforce remains strong and dedicated to safely working alongside our partners to ensure mission success.

Commercial partnerships we pioneered in low Earth orbit are moving farther into the solar system with NASA, including at the Moon and Mars,” said NASA Associate Administrator Amit Kshatriya.

“I’m incredibly proud of our joint mission teams who demonstrated their toughness and competence to solve issues when they arose – these values will propel America forward in our Golden Age of innovation and exploration.”

NASA astronaut and Expedition 73 crew member Jonny Kim, currently living and working aboard the space station, echoed that sentiment and embraced the newly devised plan to welcome Cygnus XL’s arrival.

“A big congratulations to the NASA and Cygnus teams for a successful Cygnus launch, rendezvous, and capture.

Adapting and overcoming unforeseen challenges is something we do at NASA and I’m very proud to be a part of this team,” said NASA astronaut Jonny Kim.

Cygnus will remain at the space station until spring when it departs the orbiting laboratory at which point it will dispose of several thousand pounds of debris through its re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere where it will harmlessly burn up.

https://www.nasa.gov/blogs/spacestation/2025/09/19/nasa-northrop-grumman-collaboration-ensures-resupply-mission-success/

NASA's OPERA Project Releases Troposphere Zenith Radar Delays Dataset

Sept. 19, 2025

NASA’s Observational Products for End-Users from Remote Sensing (OPERA) project released the Troposphere Zenith Radar Delays (TROPO) dataset, a new product that allows radar and radar interferometry users to reduce the effect of atmospheric propagation delays for improved surface retrievals of ground motion.

Data from satellite radar instruments have become a valuable tool for detecting sudden land changes caused by earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and landslides, and for monitoring slower movements driven by the loss of groundwater, land subsidence, or the motion of tectonic plates.

Further, the field of interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) has seen tremendous development in the past two decades as it enables users to map small movements of Earth’s surface at larger scales than ever before.

Atmosphere conditions can mask or mimic land surface motion, as clouds ever so slightly slow down/delay the radar signal.

For example, if there were a cloud over a volcano on the first take (see the diagram above) and the skies were cloud free on the second take, then it may seem that the volcano might be inflating because the radar signal returned to the satellite faster, suggesting uplift.

Such artifacts in the radar imagery caused by the atmospheric conditions need to be accounted for in the data analysis.

The TROPO dataset is important because it provides atmospheric corrections that can be used with any radar satellite.

These corrections increase the accuracy of the radar measurements for many processes that cause Earth’s land and ice surfaces to move and deform.

“This tropospheric correction dataset is designed to support current and future radar missions — including the NISAR mission that launched in July — by effectively correcting the path that pulses from satellite radar instruments travel,” said Marin Govorcin, Research Scientist at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).

“This improves the clarity and accuracy of surface deformation measurements and brings us closer to understanding the processes driving change beneath the surface.”

The TROPO product uses high-resolution data from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) HRES weather model as inputs to compute multi-layer tropospheric corrections, which account for both hydrostatic and wet atmospheric delays from the surface to the top of the troposphere.

These corrections can then be applied to radar acquisitions from several platforms, including the NASA/Indian Space Research Organization SAR (NISAR) satellite mission, the European Space Agency’s Sentinel-1 mission, and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s Advanced Land Observing Satellite (ALOS) mission, as well as for airborne instruments such as the Uninhabited Aerial Vehicle Synthetic Aperture Radar (UAVSAR).

By reducing tropopsheric noise in satellite radar observations, the TROPO data product enhances scientists’ ability to detect both sudden and gradual land changes with greater confidence.

Taking it a step further, OPERA routinely produces atmospheric correction data from the ECMWF model on a daily basis, every six hours, which users can then incorporate directly into their InSAR processing workflows.

“By making the TROPO products routinely available, we’re making it easier for researchers to perform tropospheric corrections and use the best available data,” said OPERA Project Manager Dr. David Bekaert.

“Since they’re radar mission-agnostic, these products can support the entire satellite radar community.”

https://www.earthdata.nasa.gov/news/nasas-opera-project-releases-troposphere-zenith-radar-delays-dataset

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/go/opera/

New Mexico Scientific Balloon Campaign Update

Sept. 19 2025

NASA’s Balloon Program Office launched the sixth scientific balloon flight for the fall 2025 campaign.

The Balloon Program Office, Optimization Opportunity Payload (BOOP) mission launched at 9:44 a.m. EDT (7:44 a.m. MDT) on Sept. 19.

The balloon and payload reached a float altitude of 114,000 feet and flew for 4 hours, 44 minutes.

BOOP is a balloon-based technology testing platform that makes it easier and more cost-effective for researchers to test new technologies without having to travel to the launch location.

The platform hosts experiments ranging from shock and wind measurement instruments to star-tracking cameras, 3D-printed antennas, balloon avionics, and AI-designed structures.

To follow the missions in the 2025 Fort Sumner campaign, visit NASA’s Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility website for real-time updates of balloons’ altitudes and locations during flight.

https://www.nasa.gov/blogs/wallops/2025/09/19/new-mexico-scientific-balloon-campaign-update-sept-19/

An Introduction to Hyperspectral Data for Land and Coastal Systems

Sept. 19, 2025

This training, offered by NASA's ARSET program, covers the basics of hyperspectral remote sensing applications.

In 2021, NASA's Applied Remote Sensing Program (ARSET) hosted an online instructor-led training, “Hyperspectral Data for Land and Coastal Systems.”

Given the popularity of this training and the increasing availability and use of hyperspectral data, ARSET has made the original recordings available as a self-paced course.

Participants can now earn a certificate of completion for this training on the basics of hyperspectral remote sensing.

Applications of hyperspectral data include invasive species, forest health, phytoplankton functional types, wetland and shallow benthic community mapping, harmful algal bloom (HAB) detection, and ocean dynamics.

The data’s high spectral resolution improves our ability to characterize vegetation types and biogeochemical processes across land and oceans.

The no-cost, self-paced training is open to the public and recommended for organizations involved in invasive species management, forest monitoring, coastal and ocean processes, and innovative remote sensing techniques.

https://www.earthdata.nasa.gov/news/introduction-hyperspectral-data-land-coastal-systems

https://www.earthdata.nasa.gov/learn/trainings/hyperspectral-data-land-coastal-systems

International Sashimi Station! NASA reveals what space 'sushi' looks like – as unimpressed fans compare it to 'fancy prison food'

Updated: 09:58 EDT, 19 September 2025

NASA has managed to get men on the moon, rovers on Mars, and probes around Saturn's rings.

But it seems the space agency is yet to master how to make decent sushi in space.

The space agency has shared a photo of 'sushi' crafted by its astronauts on board the International Space Station.

Stocked with ingredients including seaweed, tuna, and rice, you'd think it would be pretty difficult for the astronauts to go too far astray.

However, their space sushi looks light–years away from the traditional rolls loved around the world.

Commenting on NASA's photo, which it shared on Instagram, one viewer wrote: 'This is pretty much fancy prison food.'

Another added: '3/10 on earth. 10/10 in space.'

And one joked: 'Are astronauts allergic to spice?'

Unsurprisingly, astronauts have very limited access to food, which means they must be creative with their meals.

'Almost all of our astronauts' food currently has to blast off from Earth in jam–packed spacecraft, and it has to be shelf–stable and mess–free,' NASA explained.

'That doesn't mean it has to be boring, though.

'Our orbiting crew chows down on meals from around the world, special space pizzas made with tortillas instead of pizza dough, and finger foods like the ones in this photo.'

The astronauts' latest feast included two unusual creations – space sushi, and shrimp cocktail.

The sushi features squares of seaweed paper, topped with blobs of rice, and an unappetising slab of spam or tuna.

'The sushi stays put thanks to surface tension from its moisture,' NASA explained.

Meanwhile, the shrimp cocktail features a wholegrain wheat cracker, topped with a suspiciously orange prawn.

'The shrimp and crackers are held in place by condiments,' NASA added.

The photo doesn't appear to have done much to tempt social media users to pursue a career as an astronaut.

Several baffled fans took to the comments to slate the zero-gravity meal.

'I get they're making it in zero gravity, but it still looks so sad,' one user commented.

Another joked: 'girl not a struggle meal in space.'

And one wrote: 'I feel better when I look at the leftovers in my fridge now.'

This isn't the first time NASA's astronauts have shown off their attempts at recreating their favourite meals.

Earlier this year, Jonny Kim shared a photo of a 'cheeseburger' floating in zero-gravity.

Despite being 260 miles above the nearest grocery store, his snack impressively consisted of five ingredients.

This includes 'wheat snack bread' as the bun, a beef steak as the burger, and congealed cheese spread as the cheese.

'I miss cooking for my family,' the astronaut tweeted. He added: 'But this hits the spot in its own way.'

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-15114179/NASA-space-sushi-fancy-prison-food.html

https://www.instagram.com/nasa/

https://www.astronomy.com/science/bipartisan-reps-urge-house-leaders-to-add-nasa-funding-protection-to-stopgap-bill/

Bipartisan reps urge House leaders to add NASA funding protection to stopgap bill

September 19, 2025

The months-long drama over NASA’s fiscal year 2026 budget has entered a critical new phase, with a looming government shutdown forcing a high-stakes confrontation over the agency’s future.

he central conflict pits the White House’s proposed 24 percent cut to NASA against bipartisan congressional efforts to maintain funding. Now, with competing stopgap funding measures on the table, a growing chorus of lawmakers and advocates is pushing for a special provision to protect NASA, fearing the White House’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) will unilaterally impose the deep cuts — including a 47 percent reduction to the agency’s science programs — on Oct. 1.

“Without inclusion of an anomaly providing guidance on the NASA budget,” House of Representatives members wrote in a letter to House Appropriations Committee leaders, “OMB has pledged to apply its proposed FY 2026 cuts as soon as October 1st.

That would result in an unprecedented, single-year cut to NASA, particularly NASA’s space science activities, resulting in irreversible impacts on America’s space leadership and capabilities that ignore congressional intent.”

The path to conflict

The current standoff is the culmination of a lengthy annual budget process. It began months ago when NASA submitted its own budget proposal to the White House OMB, the agency responsible for implementing the president’s policy agenda.

Through a series of negotiations, the OMB adjusted NASA’s request to align with the administration’s priorities, resulting in the President’s Budget Request (PBR) being sent to Congress.

This year’s PBR proposed a historic 24 percent cut to the agency, a stark anomaly from decades of precedent.

While the PBR is only a proposal, it has historically served as a strong indicator of NASA’s final funding; according to an analysis by The Planetary Society, Congress has never cut NASA’s budget by more than 11 percent or increased it by more than 9 percent relative to the PBR, except for the aftermath of the Challenger disaster.

This historical alignment makes the FY26 proposal a significant departure from the norm. The ultimate constitutional power to fund the government rests with Congress, which signaled its strong disagreement with the administration’s plan.

The House and Senate Appropriations Committees — specifically their subcommittees on Commerce, Justice, and Science (CJS) — both advanced full-year funding bills that reject the White House’s cuts.

Their proposals maintain funding near the roughly $24.9 billion level enacted in previous years and are now awaiting votes on the House and Senate floors.

A ‘clean’ stopgap creates a new crisis

With the Oct. 1 deadline to fund the government looming, Tom Cole (R-OK), House Appropriations Committee Chairman, released a short-term solution: the Continuing Appropriations and Extensions Act, 2026.

The bill, known as a continuing resolution (CR), is designed to keep the government open through Nov. 21, 2025, by continuing funding for federal agencies at the previous year’s rate.

Federal agencies are currently operating under a similar year-long CR, meaning they are still funded at fiscal 2024 levels.

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Cole described the bill as a “clean, short-term funding extension” intended to prevent a shutdown. In this context, “clean” means the bill is free of major policy changes or special funding provisions and is intended only to extend current funding levels.

However, its “clean” nature is the source of the new crisis, as it lacks the explicit directive — or “anomaly” — that NASA’s supporters say is necessary to prevent the OMB from imposing the PBR’s deep cuts.

During a briefing on Wednesday, Jack Kiraly, director of government relations for The Planetary Society, stressed that the bill should be seen as just an initial proposal.

“It is the opening salvo of what will be a very contentious two weeks, as we careen towards that Sept. 30 deadline for the fiscal year,” Kiraly said.

Democrats counter with NASA protections

In a significant development, Democratic appropriators introduced a counterproposal to the CR on Wednesday. The bill, from Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) and Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT), includes the specific protective language that advocates have been requesting.

Section 123 of the bill states that “any [NASA] mission in operation, including extended operations, or under development or formulation … shall be continued in such operations, development, or formulation.”

This provision would limit the OMB’s ability to enact the proposed cancellations. While the bill is unlikely to pass as-is, its introduction formally places the protection of NASA science on the negotiating table.

“This new bill includes a provision that … would, in effect, curtail OMB’s ability to enact their cuts and mission cancellations during the CR,” Kiraly said in an email update to attendees, including Astronomy, the day after the briefing.

“The inclusion of this section shows that NASA Science is a priority for Congress.”

The bipartisan push for an anomaly

The Democratic counterproposal builds on a bipartisan effort already underway. A group of lawmakers led by Reps. Judy Chu (D-CA) and Don Bacon (R-NE) has been pushing to amend any CR to protect the agency.

They argue that allowing the OMB to implement cuts, even temporarily, would be “devastating,” wasting billions in taxpayer investment by terminating almost 20 active space science missions and ultimately “surrender[ing] space leadership to China.”

Their call has been amplified by a coalition of 15 science, education, labor, and space advocacy organizations led by The Planetary Society.

The group’s letter highlights the disproportionate impact the proposed budget would have on research, warning that without protection, the cuts to NASA’s Science Mission Directorate would lead to the elimination of more than 40 NASA science projects, including 19 active missions.

“Congress has already made its intent clear: It rejects these reckless cuts and supports continued investment in NASA science,” said Kiraly in a press release.

But “without language in the CR, OMB could override that intent, shutting down missions mid-stream, wasting taxpayer dollars, and undermining U.S. leadership in space exploration. Congress must act now to prevent irreversible harm.”

Casey Dreier, The Planetary Society’s chief of space policy, emphasized that the request is about preservation, not new money.

“This is simply a directive to prevent un-strategic and wasteful mission terminations rejected by Congress,” Dreier stated.

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Three potential paths forward

In Wednesday’s briefing, The Planetary Society outlined three potential legislative paths that could determine NASA’s fate in the coming months. The first, and most immediate danger, is the passage of a “clean” CR like the one currently proposed.

In this scenario, the temporary funding bill is approved without any protective language for NASA, allowing the OMB to begin implementing the PBR’s deep cuts and start the process of shutting down missions.

The danger, as Dreier explained, lies not in the top-line funding number but in how the OMB can control the rate of spending.

“You have a potential situation where these dramatic cuts could potentially functionally be implied during a short-term stopgap period. Not because on paper … you have the same amount of money, but because they are going to restrict again that flow of money,” Dreier said.

A second possibility is a full-year CR. If Congress remains deadlocked on full-year appropriations, it could opt to extend the current flat funding for the rest of the fiscal year.

While this would avoid the immediate cuts of the PBR, The Planetary Society warned that without specific guardrails, it would create a prolonged state of uncertainty and leave NASA vulnerable to other administrative actions to withhold funds.

The final path is an “omnibus” spending bill. This would occur if, after one or more short-term CRs, congressional leaders reach a deal to combine all the annual spending bills into one large package.

Kiraly described how this process would ultimately reflect the bipartisan consensus already established in the CJS bills.

“Likely, an omnibus will … use those proposals that are currently being considered by the House and Senate as the foundation on which they build a bipartisan consensus around an omnibus funding bill,” he said, resulting, potentially, in “a final spending package that actually results in a stronger NASA that has clear stability and direction, provided by the Congress.”

Human exploration gets a boost

An interesting aside to the annual budget drama reveals the Trump administration’s apparent interest in human exploration over science. In July, President Trump signed the “One Big Beautiful Bill,” a special reconciliation bill that operates outside the normal annual appropriations process.

An amendment added by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) provided nearly $10 billion in supplementary, multiyear funding to secure the Artemis program, specifically ensuring the continuation of the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion spacecraft through 2032.

This apparent focus on human spaceflight at the expense of science has led observers to speculate about the origins of the administration’s budget proposal.

“The source of this is not the outcome of a considered policy process, but a factional and potentially even somewhat personal image for what NASA should or shouldn’t be expressing itself,” said Casey Dreier, chief of space policy for The Planetary Society, in Wednesday’s briefing.

This move highlights a contrast in priorities. While the administration’s own FY26 budget request calls for retiring SLS and Orion and slashing science, this supplementary funding legally mandates the continuation of the human exploration programs.

The two potential outcomes are telling: If the OMB imposes the PBR cuts on Oct. 1, NASA would face a catastrophic 47 percent reduction to its science programs while its human exploration directorate receives a nearly $10 billion boost.

Conversely, if Congress passes a full-year budget that protects science, NASA would receive both its standard funding and this supplementary Artemis money, fully funding both directorates.

A high-stakes standoff

With the Oct. 1 deadline fast approaching, NASA finds itself at the center of a high-stakes budgetary battle.

While lawmakers have shown clear support for the space agency, the immediate challenge is ensuring that a temporary solution to keep the government open doesn’t inadvertently trigger the deep, long-term cuts they have sought to avoid.

With Democrats now having placed specific protections for NASA on the negotiating table, the fate of the agency’s science and exploration portfolio rests on whether Congress can find a compromise before the clock runs out.

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Meteor Shower Or Space Debris? Delhi-NCR Puzzled After Spotting Fiery Streak

Sep 20, 2025 15:53 pm IST

New Delhi:

It was just about midnight, and the residents, including some returning from their late-night work shifts, in Delhi-NCR spotted what was a rare cosmic spectacle.

A bright meteor streaked across the sky, leaving people mesmerised. But they were equally perplexed, with some wondering if what they had just witnessed was a meteor shower or some space debris.

Early Saturday morning, videos of the meteor zooming through the night sky, leaving a bright, glowing trail, started circulating on social media.

After a while, it broke into smaller pieces, and each piece glowed as it fell, making it look like tiny lights scattering across the sky.

Although the flare was only seen for a brief period of time, eyewitnesses reported that it was bright enough to outshine city lights and called it a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

The cosmic phenomenon happened at around 1:20 am in Delhi, Noida, Ghaziabad, Gurgaon, and was visible even as far as Aligarh.

But while many said it was a meteor shower, a query to Grok got a different response. Asked whether it was "a Bolide" spotted in Delhi, the bot said:

"It looks like the bright streak over New Delhi was likely space debris from a Chinese CZ-3B rocket body reentering the atmosphere, based on predictions and video characteristics like slow speed and fragmentation."

"Some experts call it a bolide, but evidence leans toward debris. Official confirmation may come soon," it added.

Nonetheless, the video of "one of the brightest meteors" went viral, with some likening it to a "shooting star explosion."

"New Delhi witnessed a spectacular celestial event on Friday night when bright debris lit up the skies, leaving residents in awe and sparking a wave of excitement online," read a post.

Another said, "Just witnessed this incredible fire streak in the night sky. Looks like a meteor or maybe part of a rocket burning up in the atmosphere, nature's own light show from my rooftop."

"I was coming a while ago from my office with one of my colleagues and around 1:25 am we saw a meteor shower above the Delhi sky.

We stopped the scooty and started recording this, not sure if it's a meteor shower or something else," wrote the next.

The American Meteor Society noted that the trail looked similar to a Perseid meteor, a type of meteor usually seen in mid-August during the annual Perseid shower.

https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/meteor-shower-or-space-debris-delhi-ncr-puzzled-after-spotting-fiery-streak-9312305

https://twitter.com/grok/status/1969301964514345027

>>23628202

Big ups if you 'knight' the bread